Draco held the hairs in his hand, looking past them at Crabbe and Goyle who had oafish grins on their faces. They were very pleased with themselves.

“Are you sure these are from Swann?” he asked again.

The two boys nodded eagerly. Draco imagined Kevin Swann, the new Gryffindor. He was tall, slightly larger than Draco in build but he had the same sharp features and pointed chin. He had long brown hair, usually tied up into a ponytail. The hairs in Draco’s hand were brown and long, though he couldn’t remember Swann’s hair being quite so curly.

“It’s probably the humidity, Draco,” Goyle chimed in.

Draco looked at him with a flat expression. “Thanks for your valuable input.”

“Did you get enough of the potion?” Crabbe asked and immediately regretted it as the words left his mouth.

“I’m not thick, Crabbe,” Malfoy shot back.

He pulled out the large flask from his robe and held it up in the dim lighting of his dormitory. Draco’s plan was far too risky to discuss in public; even the Slytherin Common Room wasn’t private enough. The plan had to remain within these four walls and only with him. Oh, and Crabbe and Goyle, too. They didn’t really count. In fact, if Draco had had his way, he wouldn’t have involved them at all. But he needed to tell someone who could then marvel at the brilliance of his plan. That, and Crabbe and Goyle were an efficient way to acquire the Gryffindor hair he needed. All they had to do was make one snide comment about Potter’s mother, and the entire Gryffindor posse would be ready to fight to defend their precious prince’s honor. A few spells, hexes and punches later, they emerged with one less eyebrow, black eyes and a strand of Kevin Swann’s hair.

“I have enough for twenty four hours,” he explained. “I’ll go in and figure out their Quidditch strategies for the final match and before you can say Bob’s your uncle, we’ll win that match on Saturday.”

Crabbe looked confused. “Bob’s your uncle,” he repeated.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Crabbe, you’re not actually supposed to say it.” The two boys looked even more perplexed now and so Draco waved his hand and shook his head. “Oh Merlin, forget it. Let’s just go ahead with the potion, alright?”

They – and by ‘they’, it meant ‘Draco’ – decided that doing the change on Slytherin turf would be far too risky. The last time a Gryffindor appeared in the Slytherin Common Room – actually, that had never happened. For good reason. It would be much safer for Draco to drink the polyjuice potion in an empty corner in the dungeons so that no one would break his face open.

The three of them found a secluded corner, far from the Slytherin Common Room and Draco opened the flask, sprinkling the hairs in. He watched with revulsion as the potion bubbled with essence of Gryffindor and it did him very little comfort to think that, at least, Swann was a pureblood.

He took a swig of the drink and felt it slowly, trudge down his throat. If a dragon ever ate dirt and then vomited it and then ate it back up and vomited again, it would taste like the sludge which had now reached Draco’s stomach. He coughed, feeling his body reject the disgusting concoction but he had to take the full dose. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have enough time to scope out behind enemy lines.

He drank some more and realized that it tasted even worse the second time around. The flask dropped from his hand and an overwhelming wave of nausea overtook him. Settle down, he tried to tell himself. But far from that, his stomach started to churn mercilessly. He imagined he was having a pretty bad reaction to it all since Crabbe and Goyle had turned pale white. They were saying something but with the overwhelming urge to keel over and die, Draco couldn’t have cared less.

He felt his arms tremble and body squeeze. His eyes started to pulsate and before long, his chest began to throb. He let out a disgruntled groan as the transformation happened, closing his eyes in hopes of dulling the pain. But it was for a good cause, Draco convinced himself. Defeating Gryffindor was always a good cause.

In total, the process took about two minutes but it felt like at least twenty to Draco. But when it stopped, it did so instantly. The pulsing, squeezing, trembling – it all stopped in a second and Draco stood up, feeling a sense of accomplishment. At least the hard part was done.

He turned to Crabbe and Goyle and stood in the anatomical position. “Well, what do you think?”
The two boys were still very pale, their eyes wide open. Literally seconds after the words escaped Draco’s mouth, he knew why. The voice with which he had spoken had not been the husky, slightly prepubescent voice of Kevin Swann. Rather, it had been an unusually high voice. One might even describe said voice as feminine.

Draco bit his lip and shut his eyes tightly, praying that this was not happening. “Please tell me that Kevin
Swann is going through a very painful and unfortunate pubescent voice change.” He opened his eyes and looked into the terrified expressions of Crabbe and Goyle. “Please tell me that the acoustics in the dungeons are shit and that you did not give me the hair of a GIRL.”

Draco’s hands felt his face, moved down his neck and suddenly grasped on to two firm objects on his chest. He shook them twice. “I have breasts, you morons!” he cried. “I have a pair of breasts!”
Suddenly he caught a glimpse of his face in a puddle on the dungeon floors and screamed. “I have Hermione Granger’s breasts! I have mudblood boobs! I swear to the both of you, I am going to throw your new broomsticks into the trash, and then I’m going to throw the trash into the ocean and then throw the ocean into outer space and then throw outer space at the both of you. You ignorant, stupid –”

“Oye, what’s going on here?

A group of Slytherins came around the corner and Draco’s voice suddenly got caught in his throat. His eyes widened in fear as the four tall boys came up to Crabbe and Goyle and shot Draco a nasty look.
“What’s the mudblood going on about?” One of them, Draco recognized as Adrian Pucey, asked Crabbe.

Crabbe looked at the look of fear in Draco’s eyes and suddenly, the color returned to his face. A small smile broke out as he shared a look with Goyle. “Something about Gryffindors being better than Slytherins.”

“Yeah,” Goyle nodded eagerly.

Draco felt his heart beat a little faster as the four boys – four incredibly large boys – turned to him and flexed their muscles. “Is that so, Granger?”

He hurried past the four boys and as he passed Crabbe and Goyle, he whispered threateningly. “When this is all over, I will destroy you both.”

However, the four tall Slytherins had instilled a newfound – and temporary – sense of confidence in the two boys. Crabbe snorted while Goyle grimaced. “Maybe you should wear a bra, Draco.”

Draco’s eyes narrowed. Oh, he would destroy the both of them.
---
Almost being torn to shreds by Adrian Pucey and his posse put into perspective some of the minor holes in Draco’s otherwise foolproof plan. Granted, kink number one was the complete idiocy of Crabbe and Goyle, which was his own fault. He should have known better than to trust them with anything that didn’t involve beating or eating. Second was the obvious animosity he would face from Slytherins. Actually, now that he was in Hermione Granger’s body, he realized that flying under the Slytherin radar was almost impossible. And now, there was a third unforeseen kink: he hadn’t the faintest idea of where the Gryffindor Common Room was.

He was wandering the hallways with no apparent direction in mind. Occasionally, random unknowns would wave to him or smile at him. He imagined they were some of Granger’s friends. He ignored them.
“Hermione! Hermione, wait up!”

Draco continued walking for a few more seconds until he realized that ‘Hermione’ – at least, for the next twenty four hours – meant him. He turned around and saw the Weasley girl running up to him. What was her name again? Jenny?

“I thought you went home for Christmas,” she said curiously.

Draco felt an elated breeze soar through him. Granger had gone home for Christmas which meant that she would not be returning until the end of the week which meant he could avoid possible kink number four: running into the real Hermione Granger and being beaten to a pulp by angry gingers.

“I, er, decided to come back,” he answered shadily.

“Why?” She asked, her eyes narrowing.

Why? Draco thought. Why in the name of Merlin do you care, you stupid redheaded bimbo? But Granger probably wouldn’t say that so Draco had to dream up another alternative that sounded a little more authentic. “I needed to study,” he answered. “You know me: study, study, study!”

At first he thought he had completely blown his cover. Oh God, they’re going to beat me till I bleed, he thought. And since I won’t be able to uncover their Quidditch secrets, they’ll win the match and win the Quidditch cup and then beat me with it. But then a small smile broke out on her face and she chuckled.

Suddenly, Draco found himself racing through the hallways with Weasley-girl at his side. They navigated up the stairs and finally arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady.

“Wigglefish,” she muttered and the portrait swung open, revealing the common room.

Draco’s eyes widened at the look of the room. “It’s so bloody huge!” he marveled. “And warm. Of course, Dumbledore would give his prized little posse the best possible accommodations while the rest of us rot in the freezing dungeons!”

A couple of students walked past him and shot him perplexed looks while Weasley-girl furrowed her brow. “Honestly, Hermione. Sometimes, I don’t understand a single thing you say.” She pulled her by the arm and dragged her upstairs into their dormitory. “Come on!”

They entered the dormitory where Lavender Brown and the brown chick with the twin were sitting on their beds. “Hermione!” Lavender exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Ginny told us you left this morning.”

Ginny. Right, that was good. At least he had a first name.

“Did you come back to study?” brown twin said, a twinge of mockery in her voice.

Brown-twin was a bitch. Noted.

Ginny rolled her eyes and pushed Draco past the two girls and into the bathroom where she closed the door. At first, he thought they were going to start gossiping but Ginny began to unbutton her shirt and suddenly, Draco found himself in the middle of porn.

“What are you doing?!” he cried.

Ginny stopped midway and looked up in confusion. “What’s wrong? It’s not like we haven’t done this before.”

“Wait – you and Granger… I mean, you and I?!” Draco was having a hard time taking in oxygen. Suddenly, the thought of Weasley and Granger in the bathroom was all he could think about. He could manage the task, of course, since the real Hermione was probably with her parents eating pie or something right now; however, his plumbing was different so it would take a little getting used to. But with the look of horrified concern on Weasley’s face, he guessed he had interpreted that incorrectly.

“I want you to cover up the hickey Dean gave me,” Ginny explained incredulously. Draco guessed she was wondering if Hermione was on drugs. Possible explanation if cover is blown, he noted. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Draco muttered incoherently. He had found himself in the middle of a very odd fantasy and needed a few seconds to recover from it all.

The fact that Ginny had unbuttoned most of her shirt and revealed the lacy pink bra underneath was not helping. She turned around and let the shirt fall off her shoulders. Right at the base of her neck, Draco noticed two little red spots where, he assumed, Dean Thomas’ teeth had been. His mild moment of arousal was now shot completely out of the water and he felt a wave of nausea.

“You know what would happen if Ron ever saw one of these,” she muttered. “I heard him tell Harry that even the thought of Dean and I makes him want to throw up. Can you imagine his reaction if he saw all these love bites? He’s probably picture Dean and I going at it on the couches. Ugh, gross. He’d …”

“Want to stab his ears bloody with a fork? I can relate to the feeling.” Draco paused, still staring at Ginny’s bare back with no clue what to do. “I’m sorry – what exactly do you need me to do?”

“Use your clearing spell!” Ginny said. “It works wonders.”

Crap. Kink number five was clearly that people expected him to be as smart as know-it-all-Granger, which he wasn’t. He sifted through the spells he knew and came up empty. He contemplated declaring that he had forgotten the spell but Granger would probably never have forgotten. Sod it, he muttered to himself as he placed his wand against Ginny’s back and took a shot in the dark.

“Clearis… Hickey-us?” he mumbled. A weak blue light shot out of his wand and surrounded the two red spots on Ginny’s back. At first, he thought he had succeeded but then, the two red spots began to turn yellow. They grew to the size of coins and ballooned so that they were now bulbous pores filled with some sort of green pus.

“Is that a new spell? Did it work?” Ginny asked.

“Er-yeah?” Draco said, feigning enthusiasm and trying to hide his mild disgust at the same time. “It looks great. Dean’s going to have his tongue all over you in no time and Weasley won’t be the wiser of it.”
Ginny buttoned up her shirt and gave Draco a curious look. “I don’t think you’re alright. Is this about Ron and Lavender? Hermione, I told you: it means nothing. Look at you! You’re such a mess – those robes are clearly too big for you. And are you not wearing a bra?”

Draco caught a glimpse of himself – or rather, Granger – in the mirror and realized that he did look like he had woken up from a nap in the Forbidden Forest. He went back into the dormitory where brown-bitch-twin and Lavender Brown were giggling and gossiping. The moment he entered, they stopped and shared meaningful looks.

Feeling oddly self-conscious, he grabbed the first set of robes he could find, a Gryffindor tie and – as he had been advised multiple times today– a bra. Surprisingly, the only underwear he found in Hermione’s drawer was black and lacy and he felt a twinge of admiration for the girl. Atta girl, Granger. Business on the outside, party on the inside.

The changing experience was not one he relished. He was not averse to naked women – in fact, he loved naked women. But something about the fact that he was the naked woman seemed oddly perverse. So, he closed his eyes for the most part and started to maneuver his way around the clothing. Unfortunately for him, the bra turned out to be the most difficult and confusing contraption he had ever come across in his life. He had taken off a fair few bras in his day but putting them on was almost impossible and after at least ten minutes of failing to align the hook and its clasp, he wished he could shoot himself in the face.

He finally got one of the two hooks clasped and the task had been so arduous that he was content with just the one being closed up. If the bra burst open in the middle of dinner – well, he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.

After getting dressed, he looked for a pair of shoes since Ginny had deemed his dragon-hide boots ‘hideous’. Part of him – a very large part – wanted to jog her memory that those shoes were probably worth more than her pathetic little house but, he reminded himself, that was out of character. And if he was to stick to his original plan of not getting beaten by the entire Gryffindor population, he needed to remain in character.

He eventually found Hermione’s everyday shoes with the help of Ginny and slipped them onto his feet. They were pointed-toed heels and while they did make her large feet look particularly dainty and her short frame much taller, they hurt like a mother.

He noted, in particular, that they were just high enough that he was now taller than Lavender Brown, if only by a few centimeters.

Oh, Granger… he thought to himself, a small smile forming on his face as he walked past Lavender Brown and Bitch-brown twin and entered the Gryffindor Common Room.

“Oye, Hermione!”

He turned to see the two people he had completely forgotten about sitting at a desk in the corner, huddled over sheets of parchment. Weasley and Potter waved him over eagerly and without much of an excuse to ignore them, Draco complied and walked to them.

“Thank Merlin you decided not to go home for Christmas,” Potter said happily.

Weasley sighed in relief too and held up the parchment he was writing on. “You’ve got to help us on these essays. Snape really has a stick up his ass – who assigns work over the Christmas holidays? Come on, Hermione. You’ve got to let us copy your essay.”

Draco furrowed his brow. “No. Do it yourselves.”

“Oh don’t make us beg,” Potter pleaded. “These essays are brutal.”

“We’ll change a few words around and Snape won’t even know the difference. It’s not like he reads these anyways. He just gives you and his pet Malfoy the high marks and then the rest of us get stuck with crappy scores.”

Now Draco was getting irritated. “Weasley, maybe Snape gives you crappy scores because you don’t write your own damn essays. Maybe I get a high mark because I actually do the work.”

There was a new form of satisfaction that came with insulting Ron Weasley in someone else’s body – particularly one that Weasley wouldn’t dare harm. The ginger turned a violent shade of red and then purple as he scowled and turned back to his parchment, scratching aimlessly. Draco wondered if he could get away with a few hexes on Weasley but he decided that maybe he shouldn’t push his luck, at least not yet.

Potter had a slightly surprised look on his face as Draco stormed off and he wondered if Hermione had ever confronted those two about copying her work. Clearly not because both boys looked as though they had been slapped in the face which – in hindsight – Draco could have done and would have enjoyed thoroughly. Next time, he assured himself.

By lunchtime, Draco realized that two remaining members of the Golden Posse were still a little bitter about his anti-plagiarism stance and sulked in the corner of the Gryffindor table, shunning him. Kink number six: shunning two of Granger’s close friends – and major players on the Quidditch team - made it incredibly difficult to accomplish the primary goal of infiltrating enemy lines and figuring out the Gryffindor strategy for the final game. As an improvised solution to this kink, Draco recognized Cormac McLaggen who was a reserve keeper for the team.

Better than nothing, he mused as he took a seat beside the guy.

“Uh, hey there… Cormac,” he muttered awkwardly.

McLaggen looked at him curiously at first – as though Granger didn’t really speak to him – but broke out into a smile. “Hey, Hermione.”

“How’s… Quidditch practice going?” he asked.

Again, confusion on McLaggen’s face. “It’s alright,” he muttered obtusely. “Well I mean, it’s not great. You know, I’m the reserve keeper so Harry only has me come for practices once every two weeks. Frankly, it sucks. I am a far better Keeper than Ron but I guess you have to be on the inside track to get a position on the Quidditch team, right? Not that I want to talk bad about your friend. But seriously, come on. I was in the Junior Division Quidditch Leagues for two summers and I’ve only ever missed two saves. Can you imagine that? And both times, it wasn’t even my fault…”

McLaggen trailed off, unaware that Draco had stopped listening to him after ‘alright’. Wow, this guy sure loves the sound of his own voice.

“The second time, the beater on my own team shot a bludger at me,” he lamented.

“I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do that,” Draco muttered.

Three minutes in to the conversation, Draco realized he had made a terrible mistake by talking to this guy. The only thing he liked more than his own voice was the sound of his own voice talking about himself. Unfortunately, the conversation continued on for ten more minutes and revealed nothing useful about Gryffindor’s playing strategy.

At one point, he had veered in that direction and given Draco a slight glimmer of hope but oh wait, no. He steered the conversation right back to how it was unjust that he had so little say in the Quidditch plays, especially considering that Owen Xavier, famous Keeper for the Falmouth Falcons, had once told him that he had a knack for Quidditch.

Draco had started to lose count of the times he had wanted to shoot himself in the head today.
Eventually, Ginny beckoned her over to their side of the table and Draco was more than happy to respond. He never imagined he would be so happy to have a Weasley call him over.

“Why were you talking to Cormac?” Ginny asked.

“I don’t know,” he replied truthfully.

“Well anyway, I don’t want to alarm you but I think Crabbe and Goyle might be in love with you.”

Draco almost spit out the piece of chicken pie he had stuffed into his mouth. “What?!”

Draco turned his head and matched their gazes from the Slytherin table. He gave them both a death glare and saw them turn away quickly. “Can you blame them? A hot bod like this. Who wouldn’t want me?”

Clearly, Plan Stay-In-Character was failing miserably but Draco enjoyed the look of confusion on Ginny’s face. He turned back to the table and started to collect more food onto his plate. He had been starving all day and suddenly, the hunger which had eluded him since breakfast, caught up. Tossing a piece of chicken pot pie into his plate, he filled up on the mashed potato sides and creamy mushrooms.

“Go a little easy on the food, won’t you?” a voice beside him hissed.

Draco turned to Brown-bitch –twin. Clearly, she had a stick up her ass. “Seriously?” he asked.

Brown-bitch-twin seemed taken aback. “I’m just saying. You’re eating a lot. Are you depressed or something?”

“Maybe I’m just hungry,” he defended.

She rolled her eyes. “Right, well, I’m just saying,” she repeated.

Now, Draco was really pissed. He took a bite of the potato, enjoying as tickled his taste buds and settled itself in his stomach. “Just because Grang - I – am not a stick does not mean that I need to starve myself. I look fine. Actually, I’m kind of a hottie. I have a butt and a nice rack and let me tell you from experience, I’m more into that than a flat chest and pancake ass.”

Whoa, trippy. He had just used ‘I’ to refer to himself as Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger. In the same sentence.

Brown-bitch-twin was clearly very taken aback. Ginny, who was beside Draco, stared at her friend with awestruck admiration and stifled a small laugh. It was remarkable how many of Draco’s preconceived notions about girls were coming true. They were kind of snarky, they had the whole ‘frenemy’ thing going on and they were sometimes mean to each other for no reason. He hoped that, since those stereotypes were coming true, that his other ones would too; maybe all the girls would gather in the dormitories after hours and have naked pillow fights? One could only hope.

After lunch, he walked back to the dormitory with Ginny and tripped twice on his shoes. By the time he reached Hermione’s bed and removed the horrible torture devices from his feet, he realized that he had two shoe bites on the sides of his feet and his pinky toe had been crushed.

“Do I look good in these shoes?” he asked Ginny. “Be honest.”

“Oh yeah,” Ginny agreed. “They look sexy.”

Sexy but in almost blinding pain or un-sexy with probability that foot may actually be in one piece by the end of the day? Earlier that morning, the choice would have been clear. But he didn’t really want to give brown-bitch-twin or Lavender a chance to make snarky comments at him so he contemplated his options a little more.

“Gosh, I’m really stressed about Dean,” Ginny said as she emerged from the bathroom with a comb. She brushed through her long, straight red hair. “I kind of feel like he wants to take things really seriously but I’m just not sure I’m ready for it.”

“Then dump him,” Draco answered bluntly.

“Hermione!” Ginny replied incredulously. “I still kind of like him though. You know? I mean, when he touches me and his lips are against mine-”

Draco, once again, had the urge to kill himself.

“It just feels right,” Ginny finished.

“Then stay with him,” Draco answered.

“But Harry and I have been spending a lot of time together…”

“Then dump him.”

“But he’s a really nice guy and a good kisser.”

“Then stay with him.”

What was with this circuitous conversation? From Draco’s perspective, it was simple. You like someone, you date them. You don’t like them, you dump them. He didn’t understand why Ginny just couldn’t understand that? Instead, she tortured him for ten minutes, alternating between reasons to stay with Dean and reasons to dump him.

More suicidal thoughts entered Draco’s mind.

And then suddenly, a small experiment occurred to Draco. He waited till Ginny caught her breath and interjected with a conversation topic of his own. “You know what? I had a huge fight with Pott- I mean, Harry and Ron.”

“Oh that’s awful,” Ginny mused. “Dean and I fight all the time. But it’s not about big things. Is that good or bad?”

Yep, no surprise there, Draco thought to himself as Ginny continued her pro and con list.

Luckily, Lavender and Brown-bitch-twin entered the room and Draco found an excuse to leave and go back downstairs. It was a few more days to Christmas and students had started to decorate the Common Room with tinsel, candles, bells, candy canes and wreaths. It was all so cute, Draco felt like he could barf sugar balls.

Though, it appeared that while people had started to decorate, someone had smuggled bottles of mead and was distributing them to students. In the corner of the room, Draco spotted a seventh year spiking the eggnog with firewhiskey.

“Now it’s a party,” Draco muttered to himself, reluctantly allowing himself to feel a bit of admiration for the Gryffindors. That admiration faded within an hour, however, when he realized that Gryffindors were cheap drunks who couldn’t hold their liquor even if their lives depended on it.

A shamefully large amount of students had passed out on the floor and couches before finishing their first bottle while those who had managed to remain conscious, continued parading around the common room, making complete fools of themselves.

“HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS…” two third years were belting. They sounded worse than pubescent boys going through voice changes. All of a sudden, one of them stopped singing, looked around oddly and then began to projectile vomit into an empty vase. Draco saw the two Weasley twins laughing in the corner and he suddenly had an idea.

“Hey Hermione!” one of them said as he walked up to them.

“Hey, did you guys do that to the kid?” he asked, pointing at the projectile vomiter who was still going.
“Oh yeah,” the other one gloated proudly. He held up a candy. “Puking Pastilles. We’ve been running the prototype to see how violently people can throw up and I’ve got to say, this is the worst we’ve had. We’re looking for more targets to use these ones up on.”

“Well, actually, I heard Crabbe and Goyle say that your mom looks like an unattractive version of Snape’s behind.” The twins looked outraged. “Their words, not mine! I think that deserves a little bit of payback.”

“Oh yeah,” they agreed. “But these puking pastilles are gimmicky compared to the things we have been working on this month. George, maybe we should try out the explosive laxative candies?”

Draco didn’t know what that meant and he didn’t want to. A satisfied smile settled itself on his face as the twins ran to their dormitories to plan their revenge. At least that was one thing on his to-do list that was taken care of.

“Hey there gorgeous,” he heard from behind.

He turned around and saw Cormac McLaggen, a smug smile on his face as he hid something behind his back. “I'm sorry, I’d love to chat but I’ve already filled my daily quota of useless crap I don’t care about,” Draco said. “Thanks to you.”

“You know I felt like we had a connection today,” McLaggen said smoothly, ignoring his last comment. “You’re kind of hot headed and it turns me on. You have that sexy librarian thing going for you. Work it.”
Draco felt sick to his stomach. Suddenly, he wished he were back upstairs listening to Ginny complain about making out with Dean Thomas. McLaggen had one arm behind his back which he brought out in front of him.

He was holding a piece of mistletoe that he held above the small space between him and Draco. I’ll be damned, Draco thought. Kink number seven. Who’d have thought?

McLaggen dangled the mistletoe and pouted, trying to make a sexy face. Instead, he looked like he was desperately trying to get enough oxygen in his lungs. Major turn off.

“Look, you’re cute and all but I’m having a major identity crisis right now and this feels very wrong to me. So I have an idea. Why don’t you hold that pose and I’ll go find a girl drunk enough to make out with you? No uglies, I promise.”

McLaggen didn’t seem to listen to what Draco had said and instead tossed the mistletoe aside and press his body into Draco’s. Within seconds, he felt the boy’s wet tongue in his mouth, stroking his gums while his lips sucked out any and all of his air – and self-respect.

Draco wondered if anyone had ever thrown up into someone else’s mouth. Tonight might be a first for that one. McLaggen’s hands stroked the sides of his body and began to drop down to his waist and then his hips and then began to venture to the promise-land. There was so much wrong with that that Draco couldn’t even think about it.

He pushed McLaggen off himself and gasped for air, and whatever self-respect he could find. But he ventured that the self-respect ship had sailed the moment he had felt McLaggen’s tongue down his throat.

“Why are you such a prude, Granger?” McLaggen said irritably. “I mean, I just want to have some fun and you seem completely opposed to the idea. There’s more to life than just books, babe.”

Now, Draco was pissed. “Just because I don’t want your bacterial infested tongue down my throat, does not mean I am a prude. Why does everyone make fun of my studying? Fuck, if I want to study, I will study! And then I’ll have a real job and marry some guy who actually knows how to treat me properly instead of a douchebag who's in love with himself. Did you get that, McLaggen? Or maybe you just can’t hear it when someone’s talking about something other than you.”

“So… can we have sex or not?”

Draco let out a frustrated scream. “You know what? I give up. You should be a poster boy for birth control” He threw his hands up in resignation and stormed away. “Too many freaks. Not enough circuses.”

As he tried to navigate his way through poorly coordinated Gryffindors, he felt an arm on his shoulder and he turned around to see Ron standing behind him, as red as… well, as red as his hair.

“Oh no, not you, Weasley,” he grumbled. “Seriously, I just got orally assaulted by one douche and that’s enough for tonight.”

“Did you kiss McLaggen?!” Ron asked furiously.

Draco rolled his eyes. “Did you tongue Lavender Brown?”

“I asked you first!”

“Look, Weasley. It is clear you have some sort of deep longing for me. It’s actually kind of really pathetic because all you seem to do is make out with Lavender Brown and then bitch about how I don’t put you on a fucking pedestal and worship you. Seriously man. It’s sad. Get a hobby. Or at least, grow a pair and ask me out if you want to date me or leave me alone, if you don’t. Get it?!”

Ron’s eyes widened in disbelief and anger. Draco had thought it impossible but he actually turned redder than his hair.

“Did you or did you not kiss McLaggen?” he asked.

Draco felt the rage in his veins boiling, threatening to spill over. “Are you deaf? Did you not just hear a word I said? Weasley, it is none of your business if I kissed McLaggen. I can have his little douche-y babies if I wanted to and it would not be any of your business. Man up and tell Grang- me how you feel or just butt out!”

Not surprisingly, drunk-Ron was not the brightest bulb in the shed. “Did you kiss him?” he repeated.
“You know what?” Draco said with a sigh. “Fuck it.”

He channeled every bit of his frustration into his hand and slapped Weasley across the face. That was the second item on his check-list that he had completed. And it felt bloody amazing. Without waiting for the repercussions of his actions, he made a dash for the dormitory upstairs and cursed loudly as he twisted his ankle in those goddamn shoes.

Lavender and brown-bitch-twin had also left the party downstairs and were lying on their beds, giggling and gossiping when he entered. They suddenly shut up and watched silently as Draco tossed his shoes off his feet and grunted miserably.

The two girls shared a knowing look.

“Do you want a piece of me too?” Draco snapped at the two of them. “Because I have a lot to say if you want to hear it.”

Both of them remained silent, dropping their gaze and shaking their heads. Draco grabbed a hair tie off the desk and tied his huge mane of bushy hair into a bun, feeling the cool air in the room strike his sweaty neck. He opened another window, letting the refreshing air calm him down.

“And just for the record,” he added, before the fresh air got him too calm. “You both better cool it with the elitist, bitchy ‘I’m-too-cool-for-you’, ‘only-losers-eat-carbs’ crap. Seriously. Otherwise, I’m going to make sure that carbs are the least of your problems.”

Gosh, someone had to stand up for this poor woman. She was being walked over by friends, frenemies, pseudo-boyfriends, douchebags… the list was never ending.

Draco felt drained. The day had been a long one and now that his feet looked like bulbous, swollen orbs, he felt it was time to retire to bed. He lay down under Hermione’s soft covers and before he even considered changing out of his clothes, he had fallen asleep.

What a nightmare.
---
Draco ran his hands over his chest at least three times as he relished in its flatness. He looked in the mirror and saw his own reflection: blonde, charming and pretty much perfect. He enjoyed that he could now walk around his dormitory in his expensive but very comfortable dragon-hide boots. He loved that he could wolf down ridiculous amounts of food and no one ever questioned him or gave him ‘the look’. But most of all, he loved that Crabbe and Goyle couldn’t go more than three hours without running to the toilets and not emerging for a solid half hour each time.

Seriously, he really owed those Weasley twins. They were geniuses.

He heard the loud cheers of the Gryffindors as they marched through the school, chanting ‘Weasley is our King’ or some inaudible, nonsensical string of words that conveyed the joy of their victory over Slytherin in the finals match. An hour or so ago, he swore he saw a bunch of Gryffindors parading the Quidditch Cup around the school.

A small smile curved onto the edge of his lips as he imagined the one teeny-tiny benefit that had come out of this predictable victory for Gryffindor. Since most of the students had been cheering at the game, it had given Draco a chance to sneak into the Gryffindor dormitories and tie up the last loose end from his one-day adventure as a muggle-born woman. He only wished he could be there to see it.

Throughout the halls, the cheers continued to resound.

“Weasley is our king, Weasley is our king…” Draco muttered along with them. Damn, that tune was catchy.
---
Hermione was elated as she heard the cheers still echoing around the school. She had missed Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays and she couldn’t have been happier to be back. Navigating her way through cheering Gryffindors in the common room, she slipped past the crowds and up into her dormitory to pick up some books for some extra studying during the evening after dinner.

“Hermione, wait up!” she heard Ron call from behind.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Ron replied slowly. “I just… I just wanted you to know that I broke up with Lavender because I realize that my intentions for dating her weren’t exactly… good.”

“Oh.” She furrowed her brow and tried to find the irrational and angry Ron she knew. But he was nowhere to be found or maybe he was well-disguised behind this imposter.

“And um, maybe if you’re not doing anything for New Years, we could hang out. And talk.”

Hermione nodded, slowly, still in a state of disbelief. Was this really her old Ron? He looked like Ron and he certainly sounded like Ron but… could it be possible? Did she dare to dream that maybe Ron had finally grown up and out of his childish phase?

“Yeah, sure,” she said.

A boyish grin formed at the edge of Ron’s lips as he blushed and ran back into the crowds to celebrate the team’s victory. Hermione, however, remained both elated and confused. She decided to continue her journey up to her dormitory and find her books.

She entered to find Lavender and Pavarti sitting on their beds in deep conversation.

“Hey,” she muttered, seeing them for the first time since she had returned this morning. She grabbed the books she needed and tossed them into her school bag.

“Getting a head start on that Potions essay, I guess,” Pavarti joked.

Hermione sighed, realizing that the one thing she had not missed was the bookworm joke. “Yeah,” she snapped.

“Cool,” Lavender said. Pavarti nodded. “We’re doing ours on the Mandrake potion. If that’s what you’re doing, maybe we could get together and discuss ideas or something.”

This caught Hermione by surprise. “Um, sure. Yeah, of course,” she agreed. “That would be great.”

She wondered if maybe everyone had been hit with some sort of personality-changing spell over the Christmas break. That made more sense to her than the theory that they had all realized what jerks they were being.

“There’s a present for you on your bed, by the way,” Lavender pointed out. “It was there when we got here.”

Hermione looked around and sure enough, a box wrapped in green paper and silver ribbon was lying on her bed, hidden behind her pillow. She looked around for a card but there was none and so, being the curious type, she quickly unwrapped it. She opened the box and found a pair of shoes in it. They were black, with broad toes and wedge heels that were only about an inch high. Within the box, she found a small card that wasn’t signed by anyone but just read: